The pace of the modern world seems to demand that we move at a million miles an hour from the moment we crack our eyes open in the morning to the moment we slide into bed at the end of our day. If we look at what life was like even just 75 years ago, we can consider how much the world has changed—and we have attempted to adapt. The trouble is that human evolution cannot keep up with the pace of change and our bodies and brains are still running on ancient wiring.
We cannot fight our biology. The human body is not designed to go at such an intense pace day in day out. If we do not factor in adequate rest and down time—if we do not allow ourselves to stop and take a quality break from it all along the way—the wheels can begin to fall off when it comes to our health at some point in the future. While we are vastly capable, this pace—the unrelenting to-do lists and our perceptions of pressure and urgency—drives troubling biochemical processes in our bodies.
Too many people have lost touch with just how good they’re supposed to feel. They have accepted things like persistent fatigue, digestive challenges, IBS, poor sleep, unexplained weight gain, thyroid challenges, anxiousness, recurring headaches and regular colds and flus as “normal”. For women, you can add monthly menstrual PMS and pain along with debilitating peri-menopausal and menopausal symptoms to the long list as well. All of these symptoms have become common, yet they’re not normal. The constant and relentless production of stress hormones stemming from the pace we push ourselves to live at, is at the heart of so many of these health challenges.
Yet it is not just our health that benefits from slowing down the pace or pausing every so often to take stock of where we are and how we are feeling. It is so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and find ourselves years down the track feeling unhappy and unfulfilled by life. In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, the iconic book by palliative carer and inspiring author Bronnie Ware (highly recommend reading it if you haven’t already), the most common regrets are not accumulating more wealth, things or status. They are:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life people expected of me.
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Often it is not until we slow down or take a break that we allow ourselves the opportunity to reflect on what is most important to us. It might be useful to ask yourself: are you really happy to give up your health for your lifestyle? To be so caught up in getting everyone out the door on time that you miss your child’s pure delight from playing with the dog? To be so preoccupied with your work that you don’t make time for things that bring you joy?
It’s important to be honest with yourself about the habits you’ve adopted to help you keep pace with your lifestyle and how they may be impacting on your health and your enjoyment of life. Life, after all, is so much richer when we have energy, good health and more time to enjoy the things that we love—and no one but you can give you these things.
It’s too easy to spend most waking hours sitting, with studies showing that some people spend an enormous 11 hours per day on their bottoms. Those hours tend to be clocked up working at a desk job, commuting to and from work, watching television, or at the computer. Whatever the reason, research shows that too much sitting isn’t good for health or energy.
Even if you are in the small proportion of people who do the recommended amount of at least 150 minutes of exercise per week (preferably a combination of walking —just being mobile —muscle-building resistance training, stretching and breath-focused restorative practices), you still need to move more regularly throughout the day. In other words, it is the sitting itself —not necessarily a lack of exercise —that adds to the undesirable impact on energy and specific health parameters. We also feel much better when we spend less time sitting. With this in mind, here are 10 suggestions for how you can incorporate more movement into your day.
1. Take the stairs
How often do you take the elevator or the escalator instead of the stairs? While they do get us there faster, elevators and escalators rob us of the opportunity for a little extra movement. Where possible, take the stairs and relish the burn in your thighs knowing it’s helping you to maintain or build vital muscle.
2. Stand at your desk
Set your work desk up as a standing station or invest in a desk that goes between the two so you can do both. If this isn’t an option for you, aim to get up and walk around for a few minutes every hour so you’re not sitting for such long stretches at a time.
3. Park further away
Do you try to get as close to the entry of the shops as possible? Parking further way is a great opportunity to add more incidental movement into your day. Plus, you’ve often got your pick of the parks!
4. Include more stretch
Use your chill out or waiting time to incorporate some stretching into your day. You could stretch while watching television or while waiting for the kettle to boil. It will increase your flexibility while also helping your body to relax – the perfect preparation for bed.
5. Take walking meetings
If you need access to a whiteboard or PowerPoint presentation, meetings are best suited to an office. Yet consider whether you could take others outdoors. Recent research suggests that walking may enhance creative thinking so you may find them more productive than their traditional counterparts.
6. Walk or cycle short distances
Try to avoid driving where you could easily walk or cycle. If you catch the bus or train, consider jumping off one or two stops early and walking home from there.
7. Use a shopping basket instead of a trolley
If you’re going into the shops for a few items, use a basket instead of a trolley. The extra weight will help you to build and maintain muscle mass.
8. Find a type of exercise that you enjoy
Could you take up rollerskating, cycling or surfing? Exercise doesn’t have to mean going to the gym if that doesn’t interest you. Think about other ways you can move that you will want to keep doing. You might also like to think of any gardening, farm work and household chores you do as contributing to your movement. Did you know that how you think about exercise (not just the exercise it itself) also impacts on how it affects you?
9. Meet friends for a walk
Instead of going to the local coffee shop, meet a friend for a walk so that the time spent chatting is also time spent moving.
10. Walk to your colleague’s office
Instead of emailing or calling a colleague, take a quick walk to their office. You will most likely enjoy the short break from your desk and it will often get your query answered much faster.
I’m often asked whether it is really necessary to choose organic produce. Particularly right now, with the cost of living soaring, it is understandable that many are trying to keep their grocery bills down. It’s true that these kinds of products are more expensive — because the costs of production are so much greater. It stuns and saddens me that we live in a world where the true cost of food and products is not affordable for all. When we choose organic, we not only look after the health of our body systems, biochemical pathways and immune system, but also the health of our family, the health of the soil, and endless ecosystems. Everyone benefits. Let’s explore this further.
Soil quality
In conventional farming practices, soils are used over and over and over again, usually without nutrient-dense replenishment. Every time a crop is grown, it draws the nutrients out of the soil and into itself. The plant uses the nutrients to grow. Then we get the benefits of those nutrients when we eat that food. But if the nutrients in the soil aren’t replaced, or there is no crop rotation, the soils are stripped of their minerals.
From the soil, health and energy are born. The soil contains minerals which we need to live, such as calcium and magnesium. But we can’t eat the soil, so we need a medium that is able to supply us with the Earth’s nutrients. The middlemen are plants – they absorb the nutrients from the soil and make them available to us as food. However, if the soil is deficient in nutrients, then those nutrients are not in the food. So, the quality of the soil where our food is grown plays an enormous role in how we feel, function and look each day.
More nutrients
Farmers periodically saturate their crops with unnatural chemical fertilisers. I refer to them as “unnatural” for many reasons, one of which is that they don’t contain the range of nutrients essential for life. They are primarily made up of three nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. This means that there are more than 10 nutrients missing from any produce grown with these kinds of fertilisers.
Additionally, plants have innate mechanisms designed to help protect themselves from pests. When a plant is left to grow of its own accord and is not sprayed with pesticides, the plant creates substances within itself to help ward off pests. These substances don’t just have the ability to help protect the plant, they also often behave as antioxidants when humans consume them. If the plants are sprayed with pesticides or herbicides, they no longer have to (and don’t) produce these substances that enhance human health and help slow down ageing and degeneration. So, eating organic food is not just about what you miss out on — pesticides — but also what you get — more antioxidants and a greater diversity of nutrients.
Ecosystem health
The industrialisation of food has had a significant impact on both the environment and animal welfare. Conventional farming practices are impacting on soil fertility, certain pesticides have been linked to masses of bee colonies dying out and it’s hard to go a month without hearing about the devastating effects of monoculture crops on all sorts of ecosystems. When you choose organic produce, you are voting with your wallet. You’re communicating to the producers and manufacturers that you want more nutritious, sustainable and ethical products on offer.
Decreasing your synthetic load
Decreasing the synthetic chemical load on your body is another important benefit. Choosing to eat less processed food goes some way toward this, as you start to ingest fewer artificial substances, such as artificial sweeteners, preservatives and other additives. Eating more organically or biodynamically grown food, or simply choosing spray-free options, can play a major role in achieving this.
Maybe cost prohibits you from switching to organic or sustainable products. If this is the case, here are some suggestions for increasing the nutrition in your food.
Mix and match
Any effort to choose organic produce has an impact and sometimes the cost difference is not all that much. Take the time to compare prices and opt for organic when it feels affordable. Another thing to consider is how you eat the food. When you eat a banana, for example, you peel the skin and eat the fruit from inside. An apple, on the other hand, is usually consumed skin and all. So, you may like to use this as a guide to choosing between organic and conventionally farmed produce.
Buy from local farmers markets
Supermarkets have created a vast chasm between us and the food chain. When you cannot speak directly to the farmers, you have no idea how they grew your food. By shopping at farmers markets, not only are you directly supporting the farming industry by cutting out the middle man (who takes a significant cut of the profit), you also have the opportunity to ask them how they grow their food and make informed decisions about what you buy. Plus you get to thank them for their care.
Farmers markets usually have certified organic, organically grown and spray-free produce available too. The certification process contributes to certified organic produce often being more expensive and you may find that the produce grown by farmers who employ organic principles or omit pesticides is more affordable.
Grow your own
Home-grown produce is generally more nutritious, because the time from picking to consumption is significantly reduced, meaning there is minimal nutrient degradation. It also tastes better. How good does a cherry tomato taste picked straight from the vine, compared to one that has been sitting in cold storage for weeks? What about a strawberry? There’s no comparison when it comes to fragrance and flavour.
Plus, gardening is a great way to get outside and include more movement in your day. If you think about the movements you make when you garden, it often includes squatting, walking and pulling which are all functional movement patterns that we need to maintain for great mobility throughout our lives. A little bit of sunshine on the skin is also the best way to get vitamin D which is essential for maintaining bone health and a robust immune system.
Soak produce in water and vinegar
To clean food of both dirt and pesticides at the same time, fill your sink with three parts water to one part vinegar, wash your fruits and vegetables, then rinse them in fresh water, pat them dry and store them for use. Pesticides tend to be fat-soluble, and so general washing to get rid of dirt and germs does not remove them. A little vinegar may help.
